At my school, I’m in a year 1 class. The only ICT they have is a laptop and an interactive whiteboard that isn’t interactive. Well we worked out on Thursday/Friday that it’s only interactive with certain pens. So I’ve only been able to use the interactive whiteboard as a projector to show videos and PowerPoint’s. Hopefully the interactive whiteboard will be interactive when I need it to be on Wednesday.

So it’s been a little difficult making aure I have 5 lessons using ICT, due to the limited resources, but you can only do the best you can with the resources that you have available to you.

When working on my assignment, I had chosen to do Year 5 Science, about the Solar System and the Planets. I knew that from my EDP2111 Prac, that I had a couple of pages of an overview of lessons from C2C. Page 1 has lessons 1-3, and Page 2 has lessons 4-6. Having taught 3 of the lessons (3, 4 and 6), I knew that they could be modified to use ICT. However, I was wishing to see what the rest of the unit entailed, so I messaged a friend of mine who is a Primary teacher, and she sent me the lessons from the C2C, with the outline. I must say it is amazing! It included links to websites where you can get information, as well as youtube videos.

The only thing about it that I’m disappointed about is that you can only access it if you are a state school teacher. Yes us students have access to Scootle, but it’s not as good, compared to what’s available through C2C.

On a Tuesday night, I attend Bible College at my church, where we watch the DVD sessions from Influencers Leadership College in Adelaide that they send up to us (along with all the notes etc.). Because of starting prac on the 16th May, over the uni break, I decided to get ahead in regards to the sessions, so that it wouldn’t matter if I missed a couple of Tuesday nights. Because of this, I now sit in a seperate room with two of my friends who are doing different subjects, and we sit and do our assignments (along with chatting!).

However, Tuesday just gone, my laptop wouldn’t connect to the churh Wifi. I tried multiple times, but it wouldn’t connect, so I just gave up and went with the documents already on my laptop (as I was wanting to access OneDrive).

This got me thinking about our dependancy on technology, and I read a couple of blogs, one by Musty and one by Tom about whether technology is making us more antisocial.

We have phones that connect to the internet, apps for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, even WordPress. I know myself, that I rely on Facebook (including Facebook Messenger) for details in regards to Young Adults events in my church (as I am a Young Adults leader), as there is a Leaders group, as well as a group chat, where the Pastor posts/messages us with information and we are able to do the same. Without these means, it would be hard for us to organise and plan events, as well as update each other with changes to the program, or send reminders about upcoming events.

There is a website called Debate.org which is a ‘is a free online community where intelligent minds from around the world come to debate online and read the opinions of others. Research today’s most controversial debate topics and cast your vote on our opinion polls.’ Including one about Have people become overly dependant on technology? As an ex-debator (represented university at Easters and local uni debates, as well as founding and running the debating society at the uni), you could say that debating is ‘in my blood’. So I thought this website is pretty cool, as people are able to post their opinion/view about a particular debate.

I was reading Natasha’s Blog Post ‘Avoidance Tactics’ about how she avoids what she is actually supposed to be doing. I agree with her on that, as I procrastinate a lot. Sometimes it’s because I sleep in, dawdle getting ready, eat lunch, and then I usually only have about 4 hours before I have dinner and go off to Netball, Bible College or Church meetings at night time.

I’ve been a bookworm since I was a kid, however I don’t read as much anymore due to time constrants, and have found it easier to just take some time out by watching a 45min episode of a TV show. Because of the technology these days, I’ve found myself being hooked to TV shows, like Dr Who, Supernatural, Greys Anatomy, Arrow and The Flash, which (appart from Dr Who), have new episodes each week, so I land up spending quite a few hours each week watching the latest episode of the show.

I should stop procrastinating and actually study! (after I watch the new episode of The Flash!)

Nowadays, we have access to thousands upon thousands of resources, all at our fingertips. I’m personally a part of multiple Facebook groups for teachers, which all have teachers from different states and different specialities sharing resources, asking questions about something that happened in the classroom, or sharing articles or craft ideas that they have found online.

One website I came across was Teacher Starter, which is a Primary School Teachers Resources website. It includes resources for different subject areas, for behaviour management, as well as worksheets and activities. As well as being able to search for a particular topic you are wanting resources for.

Today I found a blog post called ‘Teaching isn’t Rocket Science‘ which linked in with one of the sections on this subjects study desk. Professor Richard Elmore was quoted saying that ‘Teaching is not rocket science. It is, in fact, far more complex and demanding work than rocket science’, and in our Module it spoke about how an effective method for helping one student will not necessarily work for another student, and how the method for that one student may work today, but it may not work tomorrow.

The questions we were asked were ‘What do you think of this observation? Does it match your experience?’ and ‘If this observation is true – that nothing works everywhere – what does this say about attempts to mandate particular pedagogical practices across large collections of classes, schools, or states?’

I agree that this observation is true. Each student learns differently. Some students are better at some subjects more than others. From my experience, when you a teaching a concept, there are some students who understand quickly, and there are also some students who struggle with the concept, so you have to find other ways to explain it to them, to try to help them understand it.

In regards to if it’s true that nothing works everywhere and what it says about the attempts to mandate particular pedagogical practices across large collections of classes, schools or states, I think that it is true, and that their efforts are futile. It’s impossible to have set pedagogical practices that must be used in ever classroom, school or state. Each class has different groups of students, different behavioural issues, or students who have a disability. Because of the diversity of each classroom, this means that the pedagogical practices have to be left up to the teacher, as they know the students best, as well as what works and what doesn’t work in their classroom, and that the pedagogical practices have to be tailored to fit each individual classroom.

Chloe Price wrote a blog post this week called ‘PowToon‘, about a free online resource where you can create animated videos and presentations. This resource is called ‘PowToon‘. I’ve signed up and had a look through the website and think that it’s a pretty cool resource to have to use in the future. So thanks Chloe for sharing such a cool resource!